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Ahead of R. Kelly headlining Pitchfork Music Festival, WBEZ's Jim DeRogatis conducts a series of conversations with smart, passionate cultural critics.

http://www.wbez.org/kellyconvo

Jim DeRogatis: Through nearly a quarter of a century as a professional music journalist and critic, I have spent more time listening to, thinking about, and wrestling with the music of R. Kelly than with any other artist—and not only because he is the most important voice in R&B of his generation and one of the most successful artists Chicago ever has produced.

My role in Kelly's story is well-known: After a series of investigative reports about what the Chicago Sun-Times called Kelly's pattern of abusing his wealth and fame to pursue illegal sexual relationships with underage women, an anonymous sources left a nearly 30-minute videotape in my mailbox that resulted in Kelly being indicted on charges of making child pornography.

Despite my familiarity with the artist and his music, and contrary to what some might think, I am left with more questions than answers, the biggest of which resonate beyond the specifics of this musician and his work, striking at the very nature of the relationship between art and admirer:

When an artist has been accused in their personal life of crimes that caused serious harm to others, is it possible to separate the artist and those acts from the art? And should we?
What is the responsibility of the listener, the viewer, the fan?

Most people would scoff at the notion of holding an artist up to some moral standard before consuming the art.

On the other hand, is the person who collects the jailhouse art of John Wayne Gacy undeserving of scorn, or is he somehow complicit in the crimes of that creator?

In other words: What if the crimes are part of the appeal of the art?

Finally, and most pressingly, what does it say when an artist who's been accused of hurting numerous young women is celebrated by IFC, the Independent Film Channel, and music festivals such as Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Pitchfork?

Over the last eight years, the Pitchfork Music Festival has been recognized worldwide as one of the best-curated annual showcases of cutting-edge music, as well as an undeniable celebration of Chicago's independent music scene. Kelly will close the eighth festival a week from Sunday, on July 21, performing on the main stage in Union Park a mile or two away from where some of his alleged victims lived.

Will this fact cross the minds of music lovers during Kelly's performance? And again: Should it?

As noted earlier, I don't have the answers to these questions. But I know that they need to be addressed.

To that end, and with the help of my WBEZ colleagues Andrew Gill, Tricia Bobeda, Alyssa Edes and Tim Akimoff, I set out to conduct a series of interviews with passionate thinkers about music and culture representing a variety of viewpoints, personal and professional.

After all of these chats, Tricia Bobeda and Andrew Gill still had questions of their own about my role in the Kelly story, so I submitted to the same sort of video interview with them.

WBEZ - Chicago Public Media: http://www.wbez.org

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